Increasingly people are getting engaged in the gig economy and instead of working nine-to-five routines five days a week, are devising innovative work schedules. Studies have shown that contrary to popular perception of work from home being an escape route, it actually minimized travel time wasted and improves productivity. While a lot of professional struggle to convince their seniors of the obvious benefits, some tactics to do so have been suggested. First of all, the flexibility seeker must be clear about the motivations to work from home and must communicate accordingly. A proper plan needs to be put in place to ensure its success. One must never ask a Friday or Monday work from home as it would appear to be geared up towards extending one’s weekend. Instead, Wednesday could be the ideal day, as it a day for through business analysis which requires a calm environment. The message must be clearly communicated to the boss including benefits accrued to both parties especially the organization. The boss may not instantly say yes, but patience must be accorded. Also, the boss may not instantly give complete green signal, but take it on an experimental stage. Thus a six or three month trial must be accepted. A complete change in organizational perspective must be addressed and not just one’s own benefits. Thus the HR needs to be brought onboard communicating the talent management and retention benefits such a scheme would endorse. Finally, the person must just go for it and seize opportunities whenever they present themselves.

https://hbr.org/2017/05/how-to-convince-your-boss-to-let-you-work-from-home?

The Harvard Business School has created an online platform by which content already used may be used once again by sharing. This new creation is called DART (Digital Assets for Reuse in Teaching). Harvard X assets can now be reused by faculty members as well as students through sharing procedure. This is particularly beneficial to students enrolled for the Executive MBA programmes as they are often busy with work so may miss classes during the regular hours. DART has been curated through notable collaboration between the VPAL (Vice Provost for Advances in Learning) and HUIT (Harvard University of Information Technology). The Harvard online portal is executing a data warehousing so that the content remains intact but easy for use when needed. Keywords can help conduct individualized searches. The idea is to free up the transfer of learning.

Source:http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/harvardx-boosts-on-campus-reuse-of-online-course-content/

Uplaoded Date: 13th May 2017

Emotional Intelligence (EI) has wrongly been attributed to be all about being sweet or nice to people. Thus people possessing string EI skills have been relegated to the middle levels with few chances of growth. Instead emotional intelligence is one of the strongest instruments of talent management. EI can broadly be divided into twelve categories under four headlines. Under social awareness, there is empathy and organizational awareness. Then there is emotional self-awareness. Under the headline of relationship management, lie the categories of influence, conflict management, mentorship or coaching, teamwork and inspirational leadership. Someone who excels at conflict management can deliver honest, even brutal feedback to employees whenever required. Coaching or mentorship abilities are key to corporate training. Finally under the heading of self-management, lie categories adaptability, positive outlook, achievement orientation and emotional self-control. Someone with the proper emotional self-control can directly tackle people related issues rather than skirting around them. Thus the right doze of emotional intelligence can be one of the key attributes towards one’s career development.

Source:https://hbr.org/2017/02/emotional-intelligence-has-12-elements-which-do-you-need-to-work-on?

The BIF Summit held threw up some interesting points on dealing with life and work pressures. It is important to reinvent oneself before developing business innovations or executing them at the workplace. The personal transformation must not be dependent on others, so due control must be taken of one’s own career path. The system of auto-pilot with limited control must be foregone to be replaced by proactive self-strategizing. The Good Life Organization uses an innovative ploy to rescue young people who have fallen on difficult times. It uses story-telling, videography and personal coaching to get the best out of them. After all, a second chance must be accorded to everyone. Individuals must also explore specks of positivity particularly at things they aren’t good at. This will enable them to locate their hidden talents.

Source:http://innovationexcellence.com/blog/2016/11/22/tap-into-the-power-of-reinvention/